


how the story goes

by Abbie



Series: Booklovers AU [1]
Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/M, Meta, Originally Posted on Tumblr, Romance, Slow Burn, Writer AU, author has only the loosest grasp on the publishing industry, malcolm merlyn is still an abusive asshole but slightly less of a genocidal cartoon villain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-25
Updated: 2020-01-25
Packaged: 2021-02-27 14:28:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22398592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Abbie/pseuds/Abbie
Summary: Tommy Merlyn grows up nurturing the love his late mother gave him for romance novels, until one day he decides to write them himself—sort of. Felicity Smoak's life is derailed in college and she coasts along on mediocrity in a field entirely unrelated to her dreams, until a minor crisis with a mysterious popular author's manuscript and a tight deadline reminds her she always wanted more out of life. When these paths collide, it's not just between the pages that the sparks fly.
Relationships: Tommy Merlyn & Felicity Smoak, Tommy Merlyn & Oliver Queen, Tommy Merlyn/Felicity Smoak
Series: Booklovers AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1612081
Comments: 7
Kudos: 43





	how the story goes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [StoriesOfImagination](https://archiveofourown.org/users/StoriesOfImagination/gifts).



> I spun a flommy AU meta for my dear friend StoriesOfImagination one day over WhatsApp and, per usual, it got a little out of hand. As I had no intention of ever actually writing it, it lived contently on tumblr in a very long meta post.
> 
> Since I have now actually written something for it, the meta is migrating like a confused flock of geese to AO3, so please forgive my formatting. (Capitalization is for suckers.)

**[@storiesofimagin** **ation: So... *chinhands* ...about this Flommy headcanon of yours... *bats eyelashes*]**

Hahaha. yes, the flommy romance writer au.

so i’ve decided it all starts because of rebecca.

when Tommy was little, say 5-10 she’d read him the less racy bits of her romance novels when he interrupted her too-rare reading time to snuggle. and he liked the way everything was so grand and important and it always had a happy ending.

after she died, a few years into being a teenager, he found a box of her old romances malcolm had hidden away somewhere (probably that he meant to trash.) he reread them all, and he loved them.

of course, romances were supposed to be for GIRLS. (and with a father like malcolm in your life, you pick up the vague understanding that for Any Boy Of His, “for girls” is bad.) so he hid reading them.

and then, as he got a bit older still, he got the itch to WRITE them. (probably because he thought the heroine of one of the books ended up with the wrong guy.)

Well. it started a secret habit. and oh, he was GOOD at it.

(and of course all of this helped magnificently with getting girls. Helped him understand them better, know what they wanted and liked, more romantic hero than action hero.)

he stumbled into posting a couple of things online, and it went over pretty well. and when more than a couple commenters gushed about how he should publish, well...

he really liked the idea

but online, he used a name that hid his gender. and when he got in touch with an agent in college, he was told point blank that he could write “dignified literature” romances as a man, or he could write the passionate stuff he liked best under a female penname.

and really, he’d had nervous misgivings about publishing under his own name anyways, for so many reasons. he didn’t want his name to draw more attention than his writing. or to be accused of money buying celebrity and any sales not being about the stories.

and he REALLY didn’t want his father to know.

it was all still a SECRET passion, after all.

(of course, bff Oliver knows, and is disinterested in reading Tommy’s writing, but doesn’t really care except that he knows that Tommy loves it. Oliver’s just not a fiction guy, and romance just seems like a lot of wordy fluff to him when words are already frustrating when it comes to actual feelings and shit. so Oliver supports Tommy, but mainly in the abstract.)

so fast forward a handful of years and in his late twenties, Tommy Merlyn is a well known and popular romance writer.

or rather,  _ Tammy Arthur _ is.

so, at the present day moment of the fic, Tommy’s got shit going on in his life .  he’s got a book that’s being difficult and a deadline that’s already been pushed back once and the new one looming, and his father is being a monumental bag of dicks.

because Tommy’s successful career as a writer is a secret, so malcolm believes Tommy is a freeloading, unmoored, useless wastrel and he is trying to manipulate, threaten, and force Tommy into using that mba malcolm paid for to come work at the family company.

(“for the love of god, Tommy, do  _ something  _ with your life. i’m disgusted to imagine the shame your mother would feel if she’d lived to see you wasting the opportunities provided you off the backs of our actual hard work and accomplishments. why not the company? fucking sycophants in nightclubs and screwing around with the queen boy hardly constitute a purpose. It’s not even as if you’d have to earn this on your own merits, questionable as they are.”)

so he’s facing pressure from his agent, pressure from his father, Oliver’s been on a “finding himself” kick after a 20s full of fuckups, so Tommy feels worryingly disconnected from him, and on top of that, his publisher has been making unhappy noises about Tommy’s inability to do book tours or promotion because his pesky secret identity problem.

he’s generally harried and dissatisfied with current affairs and feeling stuck and directionless. writing has always been the safe place AWAY from that shit, and it’s being pulled into the mire, so it’s making hitting this deadline especially hard. he’s frustrated, and it’s affecting his writing. both his output and the quality.

enter Felicity Smoak, copy editor extraordinaire.

Felicity was on track for one hell of a future at MIT until her shit boyfriend used a program she was creating and her laptop to hack a government agency. he went down for the hacking, but it got Felicity’s scholarship yanked and she was forced to drop out.

in a middlingly fortunate twist, her phenomenal typing speed and an acquaintance in the industry opened the door to the unexpected world of book publishing. after all, with half of two degrees and no money and no way to get all the way back to vegas, she needed a job desperately, ANY job.

it was just a stop gap, she told herself. just until she got things in order to go back to school.

years later and Felicity is still a copyeditor, because she’s actually really  **good** at it (it’s pattern analysis and debugging, she’d insist) and it’s job security.

so Felicity transfers from one coast to the next when a copyediting position opens up at the new branch in starling city.

it’s just that it would be nice to be closer to home, make her mother sigh and moan less about plane fare, really.

(she’s not giving up on school, she swears. this doesn’t mean she’s never going back. it’s just for now.)

she arrives at the starling branch to find the copyediting department in a bit of chaos after they’d been too understaffed for too long, and so she’s pretty much thrown right in. her new supervisor desperately needs someone to help with the romance division.

Felicity, who’s mostly worked in nonfiction (and a little mainstream lit and a little sci fi) isn’t more than a little familiar with all of this.

but hey, it’s still just pattern recognition, right? just debugging the code.

so she really has no idea who Tammy Arthur is when the manuscript hits her desk, other than the general knowledge that this is a tentpole name in the publisher’s romance stable .

thing is, she’s handed the manuscript two days before the deadline—and Arthur was told hardline there wouldn’t be a second delay. “she” could make deadline or forfeit the advance and pay the fines.

so Felicity dives in.

and really, it’s not bad. at all.

she finds herself immersing more in the story than she’s used to. normally it’s just a surface, almost trancelike skim.

pattern recognition.

Debugging.

**[@storiesofimagination: bet she loves his sense of humor]**

(oh she does. and some of the character moments just... really touch her.)

(and wow.)

(that is some... well executed sex.)

over the first day, there are a handful of perfunctory back and forth emails between her and Tammy Arthur.

completely businesslike, all about the book. (a couple of sarcastic lines of reply do make her snort and smile sympathetically though.)

but then it’s late at night and she’s getting to the end of the manuscript and, well...

how the hell did Arthur miss this?

it’s a  _ big  _ problem. completely fucks the continuity, and now this character doesn’t make sense anymore.

and it’s not Felicity’s purview.

she’s a  _ copyeditor. _

she’s on grammar and syntax, format, and punctuation mainly.

content is for the editor.

so she tries to take it to the editor.

only problem—she and the editor assigned to Tammy Arthur were the only ones still in the office at this hour, because of the deadline. (Felicity leapt at the chance for overtime; she’s got new-to-the-city deposits to make up for in her budget after all.)

and when she goes to the editor’s office, she finds it dark, locked, and with a post it slapped haphazardly on the door.

there was an emergency.

“taking my kid to the hospital” emergency.

well  _ fuck _ .

the only number Felicity knows to call here is for this editor, so she tries to get hold of them, but at first it goes to voicemail.

starting to really worry (she can’t let this manuscript get fucked up less than 24 hours before the deadline, not her FIRST manuscript here), she frantically tries to email Tammy Arthur directly.

she waits.

and waits.

seven emails and half an hour later, there’s still no response.

and then, thank god! her phone rings. it’s the editor.

except the poor person is a desperate, slightly weepy mess on the other end, because the problem with the child might be serious and honestly, they would handle this any other time but they just CAN’T leave the hospital, they can’t.

does Felicity think she could take care of this herself?

Tammy Arthur is local, as it happens.

and though the editor sounds weirdly reluctant (but more desperate than reluctant) they give Felicity Arthur’s address.

just drive the manuscript over, she’s told.

explain the problem.

really, the editor insists, Felicity might not even see Tammy.

bit of a recluse, they insist.

there should be a mail slot in the door at worst case scenario.

just make some pertinent notes.

so Felicity frantically scribbles down the best notes pointing out the problems (and offers a couple of suggestions, just in case, really Tammy probably shouldn’t bother the editor right now, this emergency sounds serious), gets in her car, and lets her gps guide her through the city.

her phone guides her well past Felicity’s own brand new neighborhood into practically another world, finally leaving her in the parking garage of a high rise condo/luxury apartment building.

she has to argue her way past the doorman/security guard (diggle maybe??) for access to so much as the elevator, has to produce her business card with the publishing house logo and namedrop the editor (and even mention the emergency room and child), and really almost cry on the poor man before she’s allowed up.

so she finally gets up to the proper floor, and she’s tired, harried, deeply uncomfortable with this entirely unfamiliar territory in all sense of the phrase, and Focusedly Intent on her purpose.

she locates the correct door.

she knocks.

waits.

knocks again.

finally, worried she’ll have to drop the manuscript through the mail slot, she tries calling through the door, “Ms. Arthur, I’m from the publisher! There’s an issue and I’ve been trying to reach you, Ms. Arthur, if you could just please—”

the door jerks open.

standing on the other side, looking bewildered and a little pissed (and very much shirtless and damp from a clearly recent shower) is a  **ridiculously** pretty man and oh dear god how could this night have gone so wrong, she wonders, when he demands "Who the hell are you?"

oh no.

she assumes she’s gotten the wrong apartment entirely.

“Oh my god,” she says, aghast, “I am in the wrong place and you have a penis.”

he looks utterly taken aback. “Excuse me?”

cue mortification. “Oh my god! I meant—I mean—I was looking for a woman, which you are clearly not—although maybe that’s cissexist?—but I am probably-definitely in the wrong place and I am so sorry I disturbed you and made you put clothes on—I mean to answer the door! Oh my god I need to leave.”

(and see, you can understand Tommy’s confusion and hostility—NO ONE except his agent and his editor know Tammy Arthur is Tommy Merlyn, and it’s an unofficial clause of his contract that it remain that way.)

so Felicity whirls on her heel to make for the elevator—and Tommy finally notices the multicolor post-it flagged manuscript clutched against her chest.

oh god, he realizes. there’s something wrong with the manuscript, and the deadline is tomorrow at 6pm.

“Wait!” he blurts, lurching into the hall, half naked, mildly panicked. “I do have a penis!”

Felicity whirls with wide eyes and enormous suspicion, instantly afraid for her life.

Tommy turns beat red and cringes. “Holy shit, it’s contagious. I meant it’s me, you’re looking for me. Not a woman.” He presses a hand to his chest and raises his brows earnestly. “I’m Tammy Arthur.”

so Tommy declares his identity and instantly swivels shiftily to confirm the hall is empty except for them.

wincing, he takes a step back towards his open door. “Would you mind doing this inside?”

Felicity squints. “Are you for real? You’re not some creep?”

Tommy blinks, taken aback, and deadpan says, “I suppose my creepiness is entirely up to you to determine but I am assuredly for real. You’re holding my manuscript.”

She hesitates.

“Look, obviously nobody knows Tammy Arthur is a guy, and I kind of want to keep it that way so can you  _ please  _ come inside?”

muttering under her breath about how she’s going to get serial killed in a strange city and donna will tell her grave she told her so and then question her in the afterlife about how hot her murderer was, Felicity follows him into the apartment.

once he closes the door behind her ( _ not _ locking it with a pointed flourish), Tommy folds his arms across his chest (and glances down, suddenly reminded this entire encounter has been carried out in partial nudity) and asks, "What happened to [editor]?"

Felicity explains about the kid in the emergency room, and Tommy goes into concern mode, which Felicity is surprised by, and it settles her a little that this guy is so clearly familiar with the editor and even knows the kid’s name and mutters about texting editor later and sending flowers.

running a hand over his hair (and here Felicity becomes acutely and uncomfortably aware that he is really super good looking, like, should be on the covers of his own books good looking, and also still shirtless in jeans that aren’t even  _ buttoned _ , which honestly just further enforces the previous book cover notion) Tommy sighs and asks, “So what’s the emergency?”

Felicity stares blankly, then scrunches her face up like he’s being an idiot. “I just told you. Sick child. Emergency room. Are you okay?”

Tommy blinks—and bursts out laughing.

“No, no, I meant,” still laughing, “I meant the manuscript. What’s wrong with it? Why are you here?”

“Oh.” Felicity flushes, and laughs at herself. “Sorry. I’m a little—” vague hand gesture.

Tommy chuckles. “Understandably.” Then, with a twinkling smile, “Would it help if I put a shirt on?"

She flushes a little more—but answers point blank and deadpan faced. “Yes. That,” she makes an open palm gesture at his chest, “is distracting and you have a serious problem.”

Tommy’s smile dies at that, worry about the book and the deadline (and the crowding anxiety about Everything Else pressing up behind it) draining his humor. 

He turns on his heel, disappears briefly down a hallway, and returns as he’s pulling a ridiculously soft looking hooded henley over his head (and yes, Felicity definitely does follow the disappearing glimpse of that trail of dark hair leading into his waistband before the shirt covers it because  _ how is he real _ ?)

“Okay.” He folds his arms again and frowns seriously, brow furrowed. “What’s the problem?”

Launching instantly into Work Focus, Felicity strides up close and flips open the manuscript to the main problem, rattling off the gaping plot/continuity hole she discovered.

Tommy is instantly absorbed in the work and the network of plotlines, character arcs, backstories and continuity threads cats’-cradling in his head, frowning down and leaning close as Felicity flips back and forth through the pages, pointing out where the main problem ties backward and forward into the rest of the manuscript.

and when Felicity finishes, Tommy staggers backward, hands diving into his hair, and groans.

"Oh shit. Oh  _ fuck _ . Oh my god I can’t believe this. I just—I  _ forgot _ . I spotted this problem weeks ago and I just... I spent so much damn time  _ thinking  _ about fixing it that I just..." he stares blankly, aghast. "I just thought I did? And went ahead? Oh my god, the deadline is  _ tomorrow _ ."

Felicity winces—she’s done that with code before.

Tommy buries his face in his hands and lurches around to put his back to her, groaning in frustration into his palms.

“But—you can fix it.”

Tommy turns towards her and drags his hands slowly down his face til he can see her. “I have been trying to fix it for over a month. How the hell am I going to fix a fuckup this massive in one night?”

He slumps heavily against the wall, sighing like his soul is leaving his body. “I’m not going to make it. This book is never going to print and they’re not going to renew my contract. I’ll never be published again. I’ll—I’ll have nothing.” He stares hollowly at the other wall. “Fuck. He was right.”

Perplexed by that last statement (and a little unimpressed by the melodrama in general) Felicity shakes the manuscript to draw his attention. “You’ve just been looking at it too long as this giant, impossible hole. You can still fix it. You just have to untangle the lines, follow the problem back to the root.” 

so Tommy gets a little grumpy about how it’s not that simple, and Felicity, frustrated with this whole affair, turned around seven ways and out of her depth (she’s a copyeditor! handholding and writer wrangling are not in her job description!) tilts her head to one side, lips pressed together and says, “Fine. It’s up to you whether or not to give up, but here.” She shoves the manuscript against his chest. “you might as well at least try.”

and then she turns to leave, waylaid momentarily because she doesn’t remember setting her purse down but it is not in her hand, and her car keys are in it.

Tommy means to remind her that she can’t tell anyone Tammy Arthur is a man when he is distracted by the colorful post-its poking out of his pages—and the scribbled words on one catches his eye.

frowning, he flips quickly through several of the post-its.

notes, suggestions.

reminders about things on other pages, with the page numbers included.

this one has a startlingly incisive character insight.

he blinks, startled. “Who wrote these?”

Hand on the doorknob, Felicity freezes, heat flashing across her cheeks. She’s never given content notes before. Did she cross a line? Say something stupid?

Tommy continues, “These aren’t [editor’s] handwriting. Or anything [editor] would say, actually.” He looks up at her, his eyes suddenly clearer and sharper than she’s seen them since he flung open the door, wet and half naked. “Who wrote these? Was it you?”

Her mouth opens, hangs there for a second, and finally she says. “Yes. I did.”

He walks slowly across to her, and Felicity’s heart pounds erratically for no good reason—he is not pinning her against the door, this is not one of his silly books.

He looks from the manuscript to her. “I never asked. What’s your name?”

“Felicity,” she blurts. “Felicity Smoak.”

A crooked smile spreads across half his mouth and he nods at her. “Tommy. Not Tammy. Tommy Merlyn. Felicity... would you mind staying a few more minutes?”

She looks down at the manuscript in his hands, his thumb running along the edge of a post-it.

He’s on deadline.

Which means  _ she’s  _ on deadline.

She just started here and she’s in a strange city and she cannot lose her job.

“Sure.”

A few minutes turns into over an hour as he asks her about her notations, which turns into another hour as she asks her own questions because he’s just Not There Yet.

a pot and a half of coffee later, the Q&A has devolved into a sounding board/writing session in which Tommy plants himself in front of his computer, typing faster than she’s ever seen anyone outside of her field (well. her would-be field.) as he chases the root of the problem—the bug in the code—and prints out scenes as fast as they’re written, turning his back on his desk and watching her sit on his couch (shoes kicked off, hair knotted on top of her head, nibbling the end of her pen) as she parses the patterns—and reads deeper—until suddenly it’s five in the morning, and Tommy jumps out of his chair with a crowing “YES!” and a fistpump more enthusiastic than anything this side of a john hughes movie as he finds the fix.

he turns around, grinning, eager to explain what he needs to do to Felicity—

and she’s on her side on his couch, curled around a throw pillow and entirely asleep.

he considers waking her up, but they just pulled an all nighter and she’s in no condition to drive anywhere, so he eases another pillow under her head, drapes a blanket over her—and brews a fresh pot of coffee and sits back in front of his computer, and writes with more fervor, focus, and surety than he’s felt in ages.

when Felicity wakes up five or six hours later, she’s alone in the study, and the coffee table in front of her is loaded down with two stacks of paper.

one is the original manuscript, her colorful post-its included.

the other is a fresh, neat stack—a thicker stack, at that—leafed through with a handful of plain yellow post-its in Tommy’s handwriting.

the little yellow square stuck to the first page bears just her name and two words.

“Thank you.”

frowning, Felicity gets up—wincing at the creaks and kinks in her joints from sleeping on an unfamiliar couch in her clothes—and pokes around hesitantly, looking for Tommy.

she finds him in the bedroom, in the clothes he was in before, sprawled crooked across the end of the still-made bed as if he passed out after sitting down.

considering the array of coffee cups in the study, Felicity decides against waking him.

she puts on her shoes, gathers her purse—and the new manuscript—and sticks one of Tommy’s own yellow posits in its place, promising to drop the new manuscript off at the office on her way home.

she debates saying something a little more personal, but decides against it. after all, they don’t really know each other at all, do they?

this was just work. weird, but work.

and so she leaves.

she assumes she’ll only ever interact with “Tammy” ever again by seeing the name on a future manuscript crossing her desk.

and so Tommy gets his manuscript in ahead of the deadline because of Felicity.

and of course this shit is right before the weekend.

so Felicity drops the manuscript at work before going home because holy shit she stayed up til five in the morning in some strange man’s apartment helping him write a romance novel and at one point he read part of a sex scene out loud to her and it was entirely unsexy because they bickered for almost ten minutes about alternative words and descriptions for the penis.

and so Felicity goes home to her new apartment about two blocks out from the glades, almost two thirds of her shit still not unpacked, because she’s been here all of two weeks and how is this her life?

she crashes for probably another four hours.

but when she gets up, in the hard light of afternoon, everything about the previous night seems even more surreal and absurd.

and then suddenly it hits her.

wait.

she  _ knows _ the name Tommy Merlyn.

doesn’t she?

and so she opens her laptop and one pathetically shallow google search later she “knows” more about Tommy Merlyn than she probably ever needed to.

(like, she had to avoid picture proof that he does, as they both stated the night prior, have a penis, because there were like five articles that wanted to show her paparazzi photos of an island vacation like seven years ago where he and some guy named Oliver went skinny dipping.)

she knows he’s born-rich. like,  _ filthy  _ rich.

she knows his mother died when he was young, and there are quite a few articles speculating on his strained relationship with his father, and a truly ridiculous number of mentions on tmz and related websites, usually in connection to Oliver queen. though fewer by far in the last three or so years.

(a little research on barnes and noble dot com confirms her suspicion that Tammy Arthur started publishing more frequently in the last three years as well.)

she has a moment to groan and laugh when it just  _ hits  _ her.

Tommy Merlyn.

Tammy Arthur.

Tommy/Tammy.

Merlyn/Arthur.

his sense of humor is terrible and he has zero sense of subtlety.

or at least, that’s her first head-shaking thought.

and yet… she’s never read much romance before, but she found herself actually  **reading** what she was working on for this book. and his sense of humor was witty, dry, quick. and there was so often such incredible, subtle grasp of character nuance and emotion. it’s a completely different depth.

and besides. nobody would ever think to make that connection, so he can AFFORD to make such an obvious pun.

it helps that he doesn’t include an author photo in his books and the author description of Tammy Merlyn is as vague and generic as one could possibly imagine.

before she knows it she’s spent well over an hour internet stalking Tommy Merlyn.

the weirdness of it all hits her, and she’s in her apartment alone amongst the box labyrinth, blushing as if anyone is there to judge her.

she resolves to file it away as a crazy, unexpected experience, one of those curve balls life just sometimes throws at you.

it’s not like she’s ever going to see him again.

after all, it’s a big city, and she’s just one cog in the machine that churns out his books.

but yeah, it  _ was  _ crazy and weird, but it was fun.

and... here, she curls into her couch, biting her lip, eyes unfocused... for those long, strange hours, it didn’t matter at all that they were strangers. they hurdled right over the details, the incongruities, the differences, and connected on a level that was startlingly smooth, fluid.

it was nice. 

she shakes her head at herself, daydreaming about the hot romance author she shared a bizarre meetcute with like she’s the heroine in a Tammy Arthur novel.

life, after all, is no story.

it isn’t that neat or optimistic.

it was one weird and shining moment, and it’s over.

really, now that she thinks about it, she imagines that on monday her editor will corner her and swear her to secrecy on the identity of Tammy Arthur. probably even reassign her.

she settles comfortably into the humdrum expectations of bumpy work life, and grumbles to herself over the imagined prospect of getting assigned the technical manuals.

after all, that’s what her life has  _ been  _ since MIT. humdrum. ordinary. full of the little bumps that only ever keep you uncomfortable, but still herd you along the same rutted track.

monday arrives.

there’s an email in her inbox from Tammy Arthur.

before she opens it, she’s shocked by her own visceral reaction.

electric tingles riding up and down her spine, spreading across her skin to raise every small hair with the held breath of anticipation.

she sits at her desk with her finger hovering on the mouse, for some reason half afraid to open it.

she clicks.

...and instantly deflates.

“thanks so much for going the extra mile. great job! look forward to the next project.

-Tammy”

she stares at the screen for just a moment, incredibly disappointed that it’s so... short. bland. and in that same generic, vaguely feminized “Tammy” voice that so neatly hid the secret of his gender and identity from her before friday’s bizarre turn of circumstance.

the disappointment sours her mood for the entire morning, but after lunch, she determines all over again to just file it away and move on. something crazy she can reveal when she’s old and writing her memoirs of being the world’s otherwise most boring woman, maybe.

but she’s barely returned to the office and sat down at her desk when editor summons Felicity to their office.

instantly the weekend’s mundane conspiracy theory clenches at her guts and she speculates wildly about ominous threats to her job, maybe even a nondisclosure agreement.

(hands sweating over being called to her supervisor’s office in a satellite publishing office makes the memory of her college self resolve to hack something just for kicks later that night. when did her conspiracy theories get so... small?)

editor closes the office door behind her.

Felicity braces for impact—and just in time, because editor practically MELTS in an outpouring of gratitude.

editor’s child is fine, it was all just a big scare, but it was so incredible of Felicity to go that extra length to get the job done by deadline. there’s a wink and a grin, and a promise that dedication like that will be remembered, and hey maybe one day soon Felicity will be in an office like this of her own, eh?

a little bit dazed, Felicity awkwardly fumbles through a response—and just as she’s about to leave, editor says, “Oh, one more thing!”

and here it is, right?

the sly threat, the velvet-cloaked knife pressuring secrecy?

“So, you met Tammy.” wink, wincing smile. “‘Tammy’s’ agent only contracts with us under the informal agreement that we keep the author’s identity—and particularly gender—under wraps, so if you could keep mum on that, you’d really be saving my ass.”

“Um.” Felicity blinks. that’s it? that’s the threat, that’s the pressure? “Of course.”

editor gives her a grateful smile. “Knew I could count on you. Oh, and you really did some great work. You certainly made an impression. I gave the new manuscript a couple of reads this weekend, and I have to say I think this is the best Tammy Arthur yet. I think you might have a knack for this editing thing.” editor laughs. “You’re a natural.”

Felicity buries a little twinge of resentment.

what she is is a natural  _ programmer _ . a natural coder. she’s only good at this because of that.

but she stifles it. if she’d really been made for that path, wouldn’t she still be on it? would it be this hard to get back on it?

so she forces a smile, thanks the editor, and goes back to her desk.

and well… that’s it, isn’t it?

neat and tidied away, the most exciting experience of her last several years, and now the box is on the lid and it’s time to get on with life, boring and predictable.

the same old pattern, carrying along smoothly even despite the occasional minor interruption.

sometimes, Felicity feels like  _ she’s  _ the bug in the code.

little does she know, however, that she’s given Tommy something of a fever.

he crashed out after completing the revisions on friday—well, saturday morning. but when he got up?

at first he felt wrung out, scooped hollow the way you do when you’ve Finished something and given it everything you had.

he hasn’t felt like that in a long time.

it’s not that he’s been phoning it in, but as he drifts through saturday like a ghost, he ruminates on the feeling like he’s shaken off a husk he hadn’t even realized had cocooned him.

and slowly, he realizes that over the last few years, even as he’s gotten more comfortable as a writer, more confident, he’s gotten a bit... lost.

he’s been buried. buried under expectations and his own secrets and the invisibility they require.

he’s a writer. 

he’s  _ good  _ at it.

and by god, he loves what he does. it’s the one thing he feels proud of in his life. the one thing he could imagine telling his mother about without any sense of shame or need for apology or excuse.

...and yet it’s the one thing he can’t share with people.

and he hadn’t realized quite how much he’d cut himself off of with that.

back in the days before he was published, when he was just posting little things online, he could interact with his readers. and now, sure, there are reviews, there’s critical publications and there’s bloggers. he even gets the occasional fan letter routed through the publisher.

but he doesn’t respond.

he doesn’t go on book tours.

he can’t do signings.

he can’t even put his own face on the back of his books.

the one thing that feels most like  _ himself  _ in his life... and he can’t own it.

and it’s not just the sense of ownership, of pride and accomplishment he’s missing now.

now it’s that electric, live-wire current of interaction he discovered so stunningly  _ effortlessly  _ that he didn’t even notice it with Felicity.

it’s never been like that with his editor.

that was always a cut and dry back and forth, pure business conducted mostly through email.

the closest he can grasp on it in recent memory was the one time he got Oliver to actually pay attention and listen while he bounced a book idea off of him.

he’s seen other authors do reddit amas, convention panels, twitter q&a’s, signings, so many venues where they interfaced directly with the audience, connecting immediately and intimately with the very people the story was always  _ for _ .

he’s incredibly envious, he realizes.

he hadn’t realized until last night with Felicity how much  _ life _ it breathed into the entire process.

he wonders if it was the connection itself that was so incredible about last night... 

or specifically Felicity.

the way she listened... the questions she asked... she had a way of turning things over in her head to show him sides he hadn’t discovered for himself, forcing him to shape the characters, the plot, the backstory, the tone, even the prose itself in a fuller, more vibrant way.

he finds himself sitting on his couch, huffing a quiet laugh as he remembers the way she’d wrinkled her nose when he read the word “member” aloud, and the snapping-quick debate that had followed over the connotation various words and descriptions for male genitals evoked.

he wonders, suddenly, if she’s read the new revisions.

if she realizes that everything hinged on one of the last exchanges they had, around 3 in the morning, when he was venting his frustration out loud over the root cause of the entire disaster that had brought her to him, and she’d lain on her back on his couch, eyes closed, and asked in a sleepy, vague voice the question that had unlocked and expanded  _ everything. _

it wasn’t even a question about anything in the text.

she’d simply wondered aloud about what made the male lead become the person that made the decisions he did, when the answer wasn’t in any of the big, shaping events Tommy had built into his backstory.

she’d trailed off ticking through the things it  _ wasn’t _ ... and as his mind had chased along after her voice, he found himself filling in the blanks.

and, in a sharp detour, remembering that it wasn’t always the big, obvious markers that sharpened or smoothed a person’s contours.

it wasn’t always, say, a mother’s death, or a father’s scorn and neglect.

sometimes it was the quiet certainty of the best friend at your side—or the sharp skip of the five minutes when they weren’t, even though nothing happened.

most of what Tommy had mined for his character’s history after that question would never come anywhere near even the subtext of the book itself, but it was there nonetheless, supporting through underpinning, solidifying him from a character, a vessel carrying out the necessary demands of the plot, into a  _ person _ , complex and contradictory and whole.

Tommy is almost embarrassed, after all of that, to realize he never got more of the complexity that was Felicity beyond her name and occupation.

for a moment, he considers getting in contact with her, suddenly consumed with curiosity about what made  _ her _ whole and contradictory, what big and small life events shaped her mind into one that saw such startling angles.

almost instantly, he’s awkward and embarrassed.

he trapped the poor woman in his apartment for an entire night like some sort of creep. she was there because her job obligated it, not so he could become obsessed.

what would he even say to her if he did get in contact with her again?

you’re incredible? i’ve been sleepwalking through life and you shook me awake? i think you saved my book and i want to know  _ your _ backstory?

but no, no he can’t say any of that. 

hell, if she were a girl Tommy had met a nightclub, maybe then he could say it.

(but more likely he’d open his mouth and some godawful pickup line involving sushi would fall out of it.)

the Tommy Merlyn he puts on at clubs and bars is a smarmy ass, and it’s great for finding someone to fuck, but it’s shit for any connection beyond the physical.

and Felicity Smoak has already seen so far beyond that.

she’s seen  _ him _ , who he is behind a keyboard, when he’s agonizing over comma placement and tearing at his hair because he’s forgotten the word that means suspicious and curious at the same time.

the idea of walking that back to introduce her to the line-dropping bed hopper makes him cringe.

he never knows how to introduce people to the Tommy that spends weeknights past midnight reading instead of dancing.

the closest he ever got was, well… laurel. and that ended so disastrously it nearly collapsed an entire chain of relationships.

he likes that this Felicity fell by happenstance into meeting the self he actually likes.

best not to ruin that.

it’s something he can hold onto.

that one night, the one time he spent with someone being real.

someone who wasn’t the only one who’d known him since actual infancy.

after all, the likelihood that he could do that right more than one night? abominably slim.

best to leave it as it was.

so he opens up his email. the "Tammy" account.

he gets distracted, briefly, by rereading the handful of emails exchanged with Felicity before last night, the ones where he’d never even read her signature line.

he reads them a little more closely, looking for some sign in them that he missed that said meeting her was going to change something.

but it’s not there.

it’s just perfunctory work emails.

dropped commas, a missing page faxed.

she was no one, and so was he.

so he opens a new email.

for a wild, breathless moment, his fingertips resting on the smooth keys, he almost does it.

almost begins typing without a metaphysical mask.

but he hits the first letter with his index finger, and as the next follows, and the next, he realizes the mask is already there, and he wouldn’t know how to take it off if he tried.

he writes what barely amounts to three sentences, reflexively slipping into the syntax and word choices he long ago crafted to speak as “Tammy.”

he hits send with a cringe, scrubbing his hands over his face, and shuts his laptop almost angrily.

move on.

just move on.

he lets it go with effort. settles into a grim sort of hunker-down and focuses on the last rush of activity that follows a book in final edits and pre-publication.

monday arrives and he even forgets to check for a reply from Felicity (as if there could be anything to say in response to the nothing he wrote to her) until editor calls to enthuse about the revisions, reassure about their child’s health, thank him for the flowers—and finally, at the end, promise ms. Smoak understands the necessity of complete discretion, but if he’s worried, they can always reassign her?

“No, don’t do that,” he blurts, oddly anxious. if they reassigned her... he suddenly imagines the next book, and some other copy editor sending him perfunctory emails about paragraph breaks and font size. the thought is inexplicably excruciating. “That’s really not necessary. She was—she was... remarkable. I trust her, uh, her discretion completely.”

there’s a beat of surprised silence, and then editor says with a smile in their voice, “Well. That’s a relief to hear.” another pause, as if something is considered but then goes unsaid. “I’ll email you about the cover design tomorrow?”

Tommy agrees, deflated that that really is it.

it’s really over then.

and it is over for a little over a month.

Tommy gets over his disappointment (or buries it) and grabs on with both hands to that sense of renewed purpose.

in the meanwhile, his book releases, to better reviews and a bump in sales across his catalog than he’s seen in a while.

(in the meanwhile, Felicity impulsively steps into a bookstore on the tuesday it releases and buys a copy for herself. she gets home and curls up with it—and is arrested by the page before the acknowledgements—the usual acknowledgements that always thank the publishing staff—the page that reads “For F”)

(there’s no way she’s “F”. right?)

in the meanwhile, Tommy is already working on his next book—and working on convincing his agent and editor to take it.

he’s never dabbled much in the subgenres with his romances, preferring to sell his stories on the strength of the characters and the accessibility of their choices and desires.

but aren’t paranormal romance and mystery romances the darlings of the genre right now?

and this is a different take on even that.

he’s innovating a new potential moneymaker.

(they’re not completely sold, he knows, but he’s winning them over. he just needs to convince them with a test chapter.)

superhero romance could be the big new thing.

it was remembering that idea he bounced off of Oliver that did it.

he never wrote that book, but he contrived that story in part to fulfill his own interests and as an attempt to cultivate Oliver’s.

he and Oliver used to read all those comics as kids

iron man and the x men, captain america, all of that.

it had started because Oliver had once again shrugged off the romance genre as just “not for him” and Tommy asking “What if it was like comic books, though? Superheroes, you know? There’s always a girlfriend or a husband, right? That’s a romance.”

and he’d had Oliver’s interest on that premise for longer than Oliver had ever paid attention to what Tommy was writing.

and now, well, now Tommy’s a seasoned author, with experience on what readers want and what will hold their interest, and what they’re willing to entertain.

he’s galvanized anew, remembering all over again how much he’d loved the rough sketch of the characters he’d made up for Oliver.

the tragic, strong-jawed hero, and the unexpected, maverick woman who challenged and brightened him.

he knew better now, of course.

less heroic angsting, more female agency.

so Tommy writes like a man on fire until he has what he feels is one of the best pitches of his life.

and he’s not wrong.

his agent and editor are both skeptical to begin with, but they come up for air from the proffer pages with an astonished gleam in their eye.

there’s really something in there, they tell him.

if this takes off, it could be major.

a series, he challenges. if this book sells, he could write an entire run based on the main pair. maybe even expand it into a universe of miniseries based on side characters and other heroes.

it’s a risk, they warn him.

he wants to take it.

and to his shock and utter delight, so do they.

fast forward another month and Tommy stalls  _ completely. _

he’s barely four chapters into the book, his editor is visibly restraining themselves from cursing at him in their emails, and his agent is warning Tommy will be the death of them.

(it’s partly down to Tommy’s crabbiness and frustration. he’s being difficult and knowing it only makes him more of an ass.)

the time has come in the story to get the heroine involved in the super secret superhero business and everything is falling apart.

every rewrite is a false start, falling flat and twanging like a snapped guitar string, discordant and grating and wrong.

at his wit’s end, Tommy breaks down.

he emails his editor.

“forward chapters to Felicity Smoak. ask her to meet if acceptable.”

editor calls him. “This is highly unorthodox. Ms. Smoak is a copyeditor and this is well beyond the scope of her duties.”

“Please just ask her," he pleads. “I need her perspective. Forget meeting for now, just have her read the chapters and email me her thoughts.”

reluctantly, the editor loops Felicity in.

she’s stunned and baffled.

she’s not an editor. she’s not even a romance reader (ignore the stack of Tammy Arthur novels rapidly piling up on her nightstand...)

when the editor tells her the premise of the new venture, Felicity does perk up a bit.

she always did like comic books and superheroes. that’s at least a little more stable footing for her.

still, she’s almost suspicious.

it’s been over two months and she was sure “Tammy Arthur” forgot she even existed. and now he’s demanding her opinions on his new book?

she almost wants to refuse. this is not in her job description.

but then, for a moment, she lets herself go back to that night

the crackling energy of their back and forth, the urgency of the deadline and the satisfaction every time they parsed through a problem or understood each other.

and on another level, the lightning current energy of something new and strange and interesting interrupting her routine.

when did she become his person? someone who backed warily away from anything that threatened to disrupt a life she hadn’t even wanted and wasn’t even satisfied in?

impulsively, she says yes.

she reads Tommy’s new chapters, and in less than two hours, she finishes, hunched over the pages, fingertips between her lips as she perches cross-legged on the edge of her couch.

it’s still rough but it feels so... exciting. fun. and full of so much potential.

she loves the heroine. she reminds Felicity wistfully of someone she once thought she might become;

and the hero is intriguing, sexy, complex and a little heartbreaking, even if she finds she wants to shake him sometimes.

and then, right as she flips through the last few pages, eyes widening and a grin splitting her face as she whispering urges the heroine onward...

it stumbles.

tangles up in itself.

and by the time she reaches the last paragraph, she’s frowning, baffled and feeling a little cheated.

before she’s even thinking about it, she sets the pages aside and snatches up her laptop, opening her email and typing fervidly, paragraphs of questioning that is nearly interrogation, interspersed with genuine enthusiasm for the things that are so very  _ right. _

she hits send almost scowling, feeling personally affronted by the letdown of what should have been a turning point on the cusp of wonder, characters that collapsed from grand and towering figures into flat archetypes that barely resemble who they were only pages earlier.

she flops backward into her chair still frowning, still thinking about the sudden souring of something that had been so fantastic.

moments later she jolts upright and opens another email, firing off another volley of questions and opinion.

almost the moment she hits send, her inbox pings with a reply to the first email.

she opens it as if she could rip open a physical envelope in her excitement, then frowns in confusion as she gets answers that feel incomplete in consideration of her second email.

she’s finishing a response when a reply to the second message arrives. wrinkling her nose in annoyance, she hits send hurriedly and opens the new reply.

she’s in the middle of reading it when another arrives.

exasperated, she skips right to it.

it’s short.

“this isn’t working. can we talk?” he includes a cell phone number.

Felicity hesitates, heartbeat suddenly racing. the high-voltage energy of that first night feels almost at her fingertips again, and she hesitates, biting her lip before impulsively sending back, “can we meet instead?”


End file.
